He also outlined projects that might have involved Terry Pratchett, Brian Eno and Ken Dodd. He received a letter from the NT chairman saying that Nunn's successor was about to be announced (this was Nicholas Hytner, who took the reins in 2003) and that they'd decided not to call him back for a second interview.

I'd love to have seen Hytner - who has confirmed that he steps down (along with his executive director, Nick Starr) in two years' time - hand over one of his auditoria to Campbell for a "guest season" but, strangely enough, he's prosecuted many of Campbell's ideas anyway in his advocacy of children's shows, free-for-all circuses (in the summer seasons outside) and Sunday openings, though he drew the line, alas, at Campbell's proposal of a musical version of Jack London's Call of the Wild with a chorus of singing dogs.

And, of course, he'll be most remembered, perhaps, for having introduced the cheap sponsored ticket scheme (though critics say those Travelex bargains were always snapped up by NT regulars anyway) - and rewarding the benefactor, Lloyd Dorfman, by re-naming the Cottesloe in his honour, a false move in my view - and the NT Live series of broadcasts around the UK and the world.

What should his successor be thinking of doing? Seizing back the initiative from the fringe in the Edwardian and immediately post-war British repertoire; establishing an ensemble within the company, perhaps like the Bill Bryden company under Peter Hall, to explore poetic drama past and present in the Dorfman; commissioning a five-year plan of new work from Alecky Blythe and Adam Cork; new plays from James Graham and the Lucys, Prebble and Kirkwood; doing more Irish and Scottish drama, and with more conviction; ensuring that we have the next, and the best, work of those great survivors, David Hare and Howard Brenton.

With Michael Grandage and Jamie Lloyd dropping anchor in the West End - and rumours of the two Nicks joining them there, too - and with Rupert Goold committed to the Almeida, and Gregory Doran sure to shake up the RSC repertoire with telling and long overdue raids on the Jacobean canon and Ben Jonson - carving out a special identity for the National in the next decade will become increasingly difficult. One objective might be to harness the vitality and innovation currently going on with site-specific and landscape theatre, though Vicky Featherstone might have something to say about that at the Royal Court.

Featherstone will announce her summer plans next week, and it will be fascinating to see whether these will leave John Tiffany and Jeremy Herrin, say, free to concentrate on a bid to take over Hytner's job. Either would be a very good candidate, and so would Dominic Cooke, but my information is that Cooke is "knackered" and wants to go freelance, like everyone else.

The NT board simply must find someone young and enthusiastic enough to re-create the theatre in their own image and likeness, and this is a tall order when the organisation is so huge and unwieldy and so demanding in its thirst for "product." Which is why Jonathan Church at the Chichester Festival might well emerge as a front-runner.

But that certainty has now evaporated, and the future looks anything but obvious. It's not impossible, of course, that the board may already be thinking "Tom Morris", who's a brilliant operator and very clever. And surely Jonathan Kent, who ran the Almeida so brilliantly with Ian McDiarmid, should be considered?

There's long been a feeling that one of our great companies should once again be run by an actor, and I couldn't think of a better trilogy than Simon Russell Beale, Harriet Walter and Daniel Evans to job-share the position with a red hot executive director - Alan Finch at Chichester? Stuart Rogers at the Birmingham Rep? Nick Allott from Cameron Mackintosh? Padraic Cusack from within the NT itself? - setting the course with funders, creatives, the media and the audiences. There's an enormous task and duty ahead.

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